On March 23, a malevolent, intoxicated hobgoblin named Ryan Beauchamp viciously attacked Joshua Basin – a poet, music lover, levelheaded friend and son – and hurled him onto the tracks of the Bedford Avenue subway station, where he was pinned and killed by a train. At least, that’s the way it was portrayed in the media and discussed in the comment sections: Joshua Basin was the helpless bystander and a victim who’d been murdered in cold blood before a gallery of straphangers.
I was one of those horrified witnesses. For two weeks, I held off on publicly speaking about what I saw because I didn’t want to undermine a potential homicide case. But with a murder charge no longer in play, I can now step forward to say that the incident did not occur as it was said to have. Ryan Beauchamp was no “Subway Slayer.”Read more…
City Room reports that the police have arrested two men who plastered subway seats with stickers reading “Priority seating for the 1 percent.” Jeffrey Brewer and Aaron Minter, who took NY1 stickering on Wednesday, were apprehended the next day near Union Square and charged with criminal mischief, making graffiti and possession of graffiti instruments. Meanwhile, The Local spotted this bit of graffiti on Avenue A between Sixth and Seventh Streets – presumably a reference to Occupy Wall Street’s planned May Day demonstrations. A bit much?
Stephen Rex BrownIchiraku Ramen at 141 First Avenue.
The ramen joint that replaced Setagaya on First Avenue between St. Marks Place and East Ninth Street has closed after only 18 months. “Business was bad,” said owner Daniel Song, who confirmed that the restaurant shut down this week.
This certainly doesn’t augur a ramen shortage in the neighborhood, however. Rai Rai Ken, Ippudo, and Kuboya (to name a few) are just a few blocks away. Ramen aficionados may recall that the arrival of Setagaya (now on St. Marks Place) at this First Avenue location in 2007 was hyped as a showdown between the Japanese chain’s “authentic” cooking versus the more experimental noodle dishes served a few storefronts away at Momofuku Noodle Bar.
Three men robbed a jewelry store on the Bowery yesterday but only made it to Bond Street before being arrested. The heist went down at 11:30 a.m. at Raineri Jewelers near Hester Street when the three thieves — one of them armed — barged in and looted several displays, a police spokeswoman said. They fled in a waiting Jaguar but abandoned the ride at Bond Street and Broadway. They were found hiding in Great Jones Alley near Lafayette Street. The police arrested two 23-year-old men from Queens and a 26-year-old from Brooklyn. A fourth suspect is still at large. The Daily News has a photo of one of the suspects.
Ray LemoineBenny Guerra (far right) with students.
On a recent afternoon, a 39-year-old man in army pants and a sweatshirt was skating the small ramps at the East Side Community High School’s playground. About three weeks ago, Benny Guerra, a native of Flushing, Queens, was hired to teach skateboaring at one of two East Village schools that offer skating – once the pastime of rebels and outcasts – as a proper elective.
Mr. Guerra, a painter with a degree from the School of Visual Arts, had been hoping to teach art, not ollieing. “Skating wasn’t even on my resume,” he told The Local in his new office, a shipping container plopped next to a basketball court that was filled with skate gear. But three weeks ago, he got a call from Billy Rohan, a skateboarding activist who ran the school’s skate park for five years with assistant principal Tom Mullen (Mr. Rohan now works full-time in advertising). “When Billy heard I was certified to teach,” said Mr. Guerra, “he said, ‘Get down here.’ It’s part-time for now but next year hopefully should be more.” Read more…
The Local has discovered that Joseph Chetrit, the real estate mogul who last night faced Community Board 4’s disapproval of his controversial plan to bring a rooftop extension to the Hotel Chelsea, plans to convert an office building at 708 Broadway into another hotel. As with the Chelsea, the developer is seeking to add another story to the building at Broadway between East Fourth Street and Washington Place. An application filed with the Department of Buildings on Tuesday estimates that the conversion will cost a little over $9.5 million.
The application proposes that 127,064 square feet of space in the building, which comprises ten stories on the Broadway side and eight stories on the 404 Lafayette Street side, be divided into 249 units. Gene Kaufman, the architect who is also working on the Chelsea’s renovation, is listed as the applicant of record. Neither Mr. Kaufman nor the notoriously press-shy Mr. Chetrit have responded to The Local’s interview requests. Read more…
Baseball fans are crowding the sidewalk at Broadway and East Fourth Street, waiting for a chance to get an autograph from Yankee great Bernie Williams in the MLB Fan Cave. The baseball Xanadu is in full swing for opening day, and even has fresh AstroTurf around the entrance. Photos of fans with the longtime outfielder are alloverTwitter.
The Third Street storefront where a psychic known as Cathy plied her trade is still boarded up, but the end of fortune telling in the East Village doesn’t seem to be nigh. A month ago, neon signs announcing a “Life Coach” and “Psychic Boutique” appeared in a window at 39 East First Street, between First and Second Avenues.
This is where “Ms. Lisa,” 28, is now offering tarot readings, palm readings and life coaching. When The Local stepped into her boutique earlier this week, a shirtless young man appeared from behind an ornamental screen separating the small entryway from the rest of the apartment. “Take a seat,” he said. Ms. Lisa was in the shower. Read more…
Billy Leroy may have buried his tent on the Bowery last month, but the antiques dealer isn’t done snatching up oddities from around the world. He just got back from Glasgow, Scotland, where the seventh episode of the Travel Channel’s “Baggage Battles” was filmed. “It was a bidding bloodbath between me and my co-competitor Laurence Martin on a very historic item,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Local. “The Scottish people are really friendly and the single-malt whiskey is sublime.”
In this footage provided exclusively to The Local, Mr. Leroy, seated in front of a skull stash with his trademark cigar in hand, lets us in on the secret of getting a good deal. After the show premieres April 11 at 10 p.m., he’ll try his luck in Miami, during the filming of episode eight. “Boy, TV Land is a lot different then the Bowery,” he said. “I am starting to miss Bowery Misfits.”
Locals grumpy about smartphone zombies have something new to grumble about. Today Google unveiled its futuristic Google Goggles, which stream information on the lenses of a pair of high-tech glasses. A video highlighting the mind-boggling — and mildly creepy, perhaps? — features of the gadget visits familiar sights like the Mud truck and the new Cooper Union building. Would you be seen in public wearing these things?
Lauren Carol SmithThe site’s founders, Seth Cohen and David Sauvage.
Frustrated with the media’s portrayal of the Occupy Wall Street movement, two veterans of the film industry aim to bypass it entirely with a website that aspires to be a portal to all things O.W.S.
Founded by David Sauvage, who last year co-produced a promotional spot for the movement, and Seth Cohen, Occupy.com celebrated its launch last night at the hot and crowded Arrow Bar on Avenue A. With substantial financial backing from west coast lawyer and producer Larry Taubman and a staff of around 10 people, the polished site is trying to reach an audience beyond the protesters familiar with Zuccotti Park and Union Square. Read more…
Here’s the latest installment of “Police And Thieves,” The Local’s regular roundup of crime. What follows are the latest reports from March 26 to April 1, sorted by the type of incident. Plus: Our map of all of crime since Jan. 15.
Stabbings and Slicings
Four men stabbed a guy twice on March 28. The victim told the police he was walking on East Seventh Street between Avenue A and Avenue B at around 12:30 a.m. when the quartet grabbed him from behind. He managed to fight off the group, continued walking to a relative’s house on Avenue D and realized he’d been stabbed. The victim was treated at Bellevue Hospital and was expected to live.
A guy sliced a 27-year-old’s face and hand with a box-cutter on March 30. The victim and the suspect were in an apartment on Avenue D near East Fifth Street at around 3 p.m. when the fight broke out. Read more…
“It is the real estate taxes that kill me,” Hossein Amid, owner of Gizmo Sewing Supply told The Local yesterday. “I hope that they do something about the real estate tax because my kind of business doesn’t make that kind of money.”
It’s a complaint we’ve heard more than a few times. Last week it was Abdul Patwary of Dual Specialty Store: “Taxes are really high,” he said. “This month I paid over $5,000. I always pray we’re going to be O.K.”
The week before that, Larry Guttman, a landlord who just leased space to a 7-Eleven, explained, “Property taxes are dramatic. The increases are incredible and they go up steadily every year.” Add to that, some believe that city property-value assessors are overburdened and aren’t trained well enough to make accurate assessments, as The Times reported yesterday.
The Local visited some of East Ninth Street’s beloved business owners to hear what they had to say. Watch the video above and you’ll see that some believe the burden of property taxes has become downright deadly.
The bacon will keep sizzling, but the smell won’t linger.
At least that’s what Ed Scannapieco, the owner of the IHOP on 14th Street, expects when he installs a new ventilation unit that costs $40,000.
“It knocks down virtually all of the odor and almost all the noise,” said Mr. Sannepieco, who was taking a break from an IHOP conference in Washington, D.C. Read more…
Stephen Rex BrownFirefighters at the Schwimmer house.
A small crane lifting construction material at the Schwimmer house knocked over a piece of scaffolding this afternoon, injuring a pedestrian below.
Frank McCarton, the deputy commissioner of operations with the Office of Emergency Management, said that the scaffolding struck the passerby at around 2:30 p.m. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital with a minor injury to his shoulder. Read more…
For every East Village business that’s opening or closing, dozens are quietly making it. Here’s one of them: Gizmo.
Shira LevineHossein Amid
The notion of describing sewing accessories as “notions” is a rather antiquated one. But notions, like buttons, snaps, trimmings, seam rippers and collar-stays, are exactly what Hossein Amid has been selling to the East Village’s artists, D.I.Y. designers, and drag queens for 22 years. The trimmings and fabrics at his First Avenue shop, Gizmo, are particularly popular among casual costume designers. “Every year, Halloween is a big, busy time for me,” Mr. Amid told The Local. But how does Gizmo manage to make it the rest of the year?
Q.
You must really love to sew.
A.
Repairing this stuff is what I like doing. I have a mechanical background from when I lived in Iran. When we first opened in 1990, my wife did all the sewing, now she doesn’t. My work is helping people find what they need and repairing sewing machines. Read more…
Better get Michael Moore on the phone. City Room reports that a fight is on the horizon between the owners of the Strand Bookstore and its unionized workers, who are likely to reject a new contract that cuts back on benefits. The store’s general manager says that the offer reflects the realities of the ailing book industry, which affects independent stores in particular. The staff counters that a strike might be necessary down the road. “If that’s what we need to do to defend our rights in the long term, well, we’ll see when we cross that bridge,” an employee says.
Lauren Carol SmithThe restaurant at 7 St. Marks Place will expand next door.
A worker renovating the below-ground space at 5 St. Marks Place, near Third Avenue, just told The Local that the Thai restaurant next door, Klong, will be moving in. An employee at JKNY Realty, which is listed as the owner in Department of Buildings records, confirmed the expansion. The space was previously occupied by Hottie, which closed in November.
Around 250 parents and friends of the Children’s Workshop School gathered on Friday evening for a benefit that featured a silent auction of art by local artists, as well as a performance by the pop singer Lisa Lisa (of Cult Jam fame). As turned out, the organizers of the “SchoolAPalooza” didn’t have to pull too many strings to get the woman behind the 1987 hit “Lost in Emotion” to make an appearance: the principal of the school, Maria Velez-Clarke, is her older sister. The Local was there with camera in hand to document the festivities — as well as footwear signed by none other than the Material Girl. Read more…
Here’s the latest installment of “Police And Thieves,” The Local’s regular roundup of crime. What follows are the latest reports from March 12 to 18, sorted by the type of incident. Plus: Our map of all of crime since Jan. 15.
Trouble on the Trains
Vivienne GucwaThe Astor Place station.
A thief chucked two sneakers at a man and robbed him on March 12. The 44-year-old victim told the police he was sitting on a bench on the northbound platform in the Astor Place station at around 6 a.m. when a man sat beside him and said, “I’m going to kill you if you don’t give me your money.” After getting what he asked for, the suspect reached into his jacket, pulled out the shoe and threw it at the victim, hitting him in the back. The victim alerted a booth clerk, and re-approached the suspect, who had moved up the platform, only to get a shoe hurled at him again.
A guy asked a woman for directions in the Second Avenue subway station and then snatched her cellphone on March 17. The 23-year-old victim said that after she gave the suspect directions at around 9:50 p.m., he grabbed her iPhone 4S from her hand. She gave chase but lost the thief on the street.
After drinking till closing time at Double Down Saloon on March 18, a 27-year-old from Wisconsin passed out on a subway platform. He woke up four hours later and was missing his cellphone as well as the iPhone that he used for browsing the internet. To add insult to injury, when he awoke and tried to report the crime to a booth clerk at the station she wouldn’t help him out. Read more…
The Local was a journalistic collaboration designed to reflect the richness of the East Village, report on its issues and concerns, give voice to its people and create a space for our neighbors to tell stories about themselves. It was operated by the students and faculty of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, in collaboration with The New York Times, which provides supervision to ensure that the blog remains impartial, reporting-based, thorough and rooted in Times standards. Read more »
